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At 5:40am this morning, I was out the door and headed towards school, where I would drop off my car, meet up with some friends, and head to the train station. By 6:35am I was on a northbound train headed to Penn Station. By 8:00am I was inside Riverside Church on Riverside Dr. in NYC. After years of trying to attend, I was finally at Teacher’s College Saturday Reunion.

When my colleagues and I arrived, we picked up our schedules and began scanning the multitude of workshops being offered. Within moments I announced I would be eating my brown bag lunch on the run and attending all four sessions. My colleagues quickly agreed. How could I possibly choose to give up a session for something as silly as lunch?! As I read the descriptions of the many sessions being offered, I was circling possibilities left and right. How on earth would I ever decide which workshops to attend?

Eventually, I made my choices. In the meantime, we made our way to the main chapel to hear the keynote speaker. Tomie dePaolo (author of over 200 books, including Strega Nona), renowned and award-winning author/illustrator gave a rousing talk entitled “No Teacher Left Behind”. He was a brilliant speaker and had the packed church in stitches. He shared many tales of his childhood and the importance that reading and writing held in it. He is also a strong supporter of teachers. He told us that his personal book sales have decreased 50% since the inception of No Child Left Behind. He and his agent attribute this to the huge number of teachers and school districts which can no longer purchase and use his books because they must focus on “the test”. It was a staggering statistic and I would be very interested in hearing if other authors have experienced a similar drop in sales.

After dePaolo’s speech, I made my way to my first session. I was very excited to finally hear Mary Ehrenworth (om/gp/product/0325006881?ie=UTF8&tag=thereazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0325006881″>The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language) speak, as she heads the middle school aspects of the Project. She gave a great presentation on working with stronger readers, the ones who are usually left on their own in workshop. She shared some great picture books to use in small groups that allow students to stretch their thinking above and beyond the literal. I ended up with a great list of picture books and plan to order one immediately, for our Holocaust unit.

More importantly, Ehrenworth told the group that we can not expect our students to be readers if we are not readers ourselves. We must share books with them, carry books around, even tell them, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even get to finish planning my lesson last night- I was reading this phenomenal book!” You will teach them more with that non-lesson that you would with any mini-lesson. She also shared a great analogy, courtesy of Lester Laminack. Ask any middle schooler what they can’t wait to do, and invariably you will hear “drive”. We don’t teach them this desire- there are no minilessons, no group discussions, no direct instruction on why driving is great. Instead, their experiences with cars and in cars have made this a natural desire. We need to make reading just as natural a desire. They should want to read, they should desire to read. I can’t wait to share that analogy with some of my colleagues!

My next session with with the famous Lucy Calkins (The Art of Teaching Reading, The Art of Teaching Writing). Her session was standing room only and it was like being in the presence of a celebrity. While she didn’t teach as much as motivate, she was extremely inspiring. She shared some sample writing with us and I still managed to learn a lot.

The third session was one I was looking forward to because it focused on grammar. A project leader (whose name escapes me right now) took us through a typical week of grammar instruction in the middle school she coaches. It was a great marriage of direct instruction and inquiry, and a model I think my district would be satisfied with me pursuing. She also told us that we shouldn’t spend more time planning our grammar lessons that we actually spend teaching grammar. So if we teach 20 minutes of direct instruction grammar during word study, then don’t plan for 3 hours. I took lots of notes in that session and walked out with a booklist of books I must buy! Already I am planning to get Constance Weaver’s The Grammar Plan Book: A Guide to Smart Teaching and Don Killgallon’s Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence-Composing Approach–A Student Worktext. Has any used either of these? Or have a suggestion for where I could find them a little cheaper?

I was very excited for the last session. Georgia Heard shared her poetry unit of study with us and it was phenomenal! First of all, she was a lot younger than I expected (which surprised me, for some reason). It was so inspiring to hear her share her own experiences with poetry in the classroom. I also have a much better understanding of the doors to poetry that she discusses in Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School. I took copious notes in all the sessions, but especially hers, and can’t wait to go back and read them over to let them really sink in.

I swear, I was such a fangirl today. I could have stayed at TC all day, because I was finally in the presence of these men and women who have shaped so much of my teaching. They were practically celebrities to me. To hear my own beliefs and experiences in the classroom affirmed by the Project leaders and the other teachers attending the Reunion really strengthened my resolve to continue what I am doing. It was an invigorating, renewing, energizing day. I would go every month if they offered it! My next goal is to attend a summer institute at TC, as soon as I can afford it (our district doesn’t pay for it). If 5 hours taught me this much today, I can’t imagine what a week would do! I would just need a little more sleep. Getting up at 5am killed me today!!

Oh, and I finally experienced a document camera/ELMO for the first time today. How do I get one in my classroom?! It was amazing! I could already name a million ways I would use it in my classroom!!!

I love reading. If you told me I could do absolutely anything I want for an entire day, I would choose reading. I love sitting on my couch, with its chaise lounge, stretching out with a good book.

I have spent the majority of today reading the conclusion to my favorite trilogy, The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy), by Libba Bray. Hours have flown by as I have delved deeper into this almost-800 page tome. I have had it on my nightstand for over a month, but I held off on reading it until spring break, when I knew I would be able to give it the attention it deserved. How right I was! I have been pulled into Gemma’s world and am almost done with the book.

Granted, I haven’t left my house yet today. But who needs to leave when you have a good book?

When I was in college, my favorite professor was a William Carlos Williams expert. I fell in love with his poetry and the fact that he was a native New Jerseyan, like myself. Today I want to share part of his poem, “Spring and All”.

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
-William Carlos Williams

In order to get the word out about the re-release of the Sweet Valley High series, Random House has been circulating a memo among journalists (*source- Gawker). Along with publicizing the “new” series, the memo highlights a few of the editorial changes made by the publisher to ensure the books will be accepted by savvy teens in the new millenium. In 1983, the twins drove a red Fiat- in 2008 it’s a red Jeep. In 1983, Elizabeth was an editor at the school newspaper. In 2008, she is an editor for the school newspaper, which is a website, and also runs an anonymous blog. These updates make sense and I understand why the editors implemented them. However, I was infuriated and disappointed by the first change noted in the memo: in 1983 the twins wore a “perfect size 6”. Today, it’s a “perfect size 4”. First of all, I have a problem with any size being deemed perfect. Body image issues, much? Even if they were changing the size to an 8, it would still be wrong. I can guarantee that some girl is going to read that and feel like she isn’t good enough for not being that big/small, as she won’t be “perfect”. If they are going to bother updating the series (which was no great literary shakes) they could at least attempt to be sensitive to their readers (teenage girls).

What editor deemed it necessary to even make this change?! To begin with, would teens today not know what a size 6 is? The change from a Fiat to a Jeep seems necessary, as most teens would have no idea what a Fiat is in 2008. And the update from a newspaper to a website also makes sense, as most schools have some type of website. But in the eyes of Random House, the greatest improvement made by the Wakefield twins in the last 25 years is that they shrank?! As if teenage girls don’t have enough body-image issues from television and magazines, we now need to raise the Wakefield twins from the dead and make then skinnier?

I’m sorry, but what exactly was wrong with leaving them as a size 6? And don’t give me the BS that women’s size labels have shrunk in the last 2 decades so it was necessary to update that in the book. Not one teen girl would know that. If they did, it would not keep them from enjoying the series. Is it too much to ask that Random House promote a healthy body image? I would be happier if no size was included in the twins’ descriptions at all, to be honest. I don’t think it’s necessary to tell the reader their clothing size. Actually, looking back, I read a few of the books when I was younger and I have no recollection of Elizabeth and Jessica’s dress sizes being mentioned. Perhaps it was mentioned in passing once or twice, but it was certainly never a focus of the books. Great- it makes it even worse, in my opinion, that the Random House publicity department chose to highlight the girls’ sizes in their press release.

*Sigh* I think tween and young adult literature has come a long way in the last twenty-five years. But it seems that the publishers still need to come a little farther when it comes to advertising their books. Teens, especially teen girls, do not need to focus on tiny, skinny, unrealistic girls in their novels. Just look at this press release, and at the covers of books like the “Gossip Girl” series- all skinny, model-like girls. Speaking as a tiny, skinny girl (who was frequently made fun of in her teen years for being “too skinny”), who is naturally tiny, I am offended! Books should be about escaping into another life and another world. Readers shouldn’t have to focus on what a character is “supposed” to look like. That’s what your imagination is for!

Please, publishers, let this be a lesson. Size does not matter in cases like this!

In the interest of full disclosure, I was never a huge SVH fan. I thought the characters were shallow and always felt bad for Elizabeth because she was the smart girl who rarely got the popularity or other “cool” stuff. On the other hand, I love reading “Gossip Girl” as a guilty pleasure series. In other words, this isn’t an indictment of YA chicklit. It’s just an indictment of the way these books are advertised.

The little old woman jerked me out my book-seeking haze. As I struggled to balance the mammoth pile of books in my arms, I glanced around the bookstore.

“Umm, I think there is a mystery section. I don’t work here, but I think it’s somewhere over the-”

The little old woman interrupted, “Oh my goodness! I am so sorry! I thought you worked here! It’s just you had that big pile of books and I thought you were putting them away……I am so sorry. I will go find an employee and ask them. Excuse me.” She looked embarrassed and quickly made her way towards the information desk at the back of the store.

Looking down at my arms, where I was trying to juggle approximately 15 new books that I needed, I laughed to myself. I definitely looked like an employee. Because seriously, who in their right mind carries that many books around a bookstore unless they are cleaning up and putting them away?

Yes, you are at the right blog. 🙂 I am doing some spring cleaning and while I loved the colors of the old style, it wasn’t very professional-looking and tended to get cluttered too easily. I’m not 100% happy (I wish I could change the background color from gray to green) but I am satisfied right now.